A bug's chance at life

LODI - For a creature eight-tenths of an inch long, the elderberry beetle has instilled much fear in farmers over the past 30 years.

Alex Breitler

LODI - For a creature eight-tenths of an inch long, the elderberry beetle has instilled much fear in farmers over the past 30 years.

The beetle is a threatened species. Threatened species bring unwanted attention from the federal government. The government can tell you what you do with your own land.

An elderberry beetle, or the presence of the bush in which it lives, was bad news indeed.

Six years ago, however, vintner Brad Lange came to the opposite conclusion. He actively sought out the feds and signed a deal with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to provide safe harbor for the beetle in exchange for immunity if some of them are accidentally killed during the course of normal operations at the fifth-generation LangeTwins farm. He began planting elderberry bushes.

The phone rang. "What the hell are you doing?" some of Lange's fellow farmers asked.

"I said, if we have the right agreement, and Fish and Wildlife has the right attitude, that we will have so much habitat and so many elderberry bushes that they're not going to care if we squish a bug," Lange said Friday.

His vision may slowly be coming true.

Fish and Wildlife last week proposed taking the elderberry beetle off the list of threatened and endangered species. Among many other factors, its written proposal mentions Mokelumne growers such as Lange, who had a mere 13 elderberry bushes before the agreement was reached and has since planted 300. Several other landowners are also participating.

It would be too generous to say Lange helped save the species. He's not even sure if any beetles inhabit the bushes, which sprout tiny yellow flowers each spring and line the Mokelumne River as it lolls past his grape orchards.

The news does demonstrate, however, that projects to restore vegetation along local rivers can contribute to big-picture success stories.

"All up and down (the Valley) there's folks like us," Lange said. "It's the collective people who come together and are proud to do what they've done, and continue to do it, and the ability to have an agreement that allows them the freedom to do it without fear of reprisals or fines."

John Brodie, project manager for the San Joaquin County Resource Conservation District, helped facilitate the safe harbor agreement. He remembers his initial surprise at Lange's determination to not only preserve existing plants but add new ones too.

"It took someone to take the first step and really kind of stick their neck out and be kind of a guinea pig for this," Brodie said.

The burrowing beetles live only within the stems of elderberry bushes. More than 90 percent of the riverside vegetation in the Central Valley has been destroyed to make way for cities and farms.

Fish and Wildlife cautions that the exact population of beetles remains unclear. The species is now believed to exist in 26 areas, including portions of the lower Mokelumne River. That's an increase from three areas in 1980.

The agency says that because of the voluntary nature of Lange's safe harbor agreement, it was not a major factor in the decision to upgrade the beetle's status.

Under the agreement, after all, landowners are allowed to remove new plants as long as a sufficient number of plants remain. The proposal points out that the Mokelumne protections are "limited" and reduce, but do not eliminate, the possibility that the new habitat will be lost in the future.

That's not to diminish credit due to Lange and others, said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Robert Moler.

"It is still significant, and we encourage it," Moler said. "This particular (agreement) is a shining example of how these things can work."

Don't worry about anyone removing the bushes. Not at the Lange farm, Brad Lange said.

"Look, if you've got a volunteer and he wants to do it, you think he's going to want to take it out?" he said. "We feel this is as much a part of our business as farming. We want this. Why would we ever take it out?"